34. NIKOLAI
Chapter thirty-four
S he’d curled deeper into the couch—trying to disguise her anxiety as calm.
But I saw through it. And, fuck me, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know all of her.
“So, Lacey…” I said carefully, “you want to explain to me why you’re okay using the identity of your dead sister, while just the idea of starting a new life to save yourself is the end of the world?”
Her entire body tensed, and when she looked at me, it wasn’t with anger. It was worse—raw, personal hurt.
She answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “How do you know about that?”
I tipped my chin toward the computer room.
Her gaze followed. She stared at the glass wall, then released a soft exhale, almost like a laugh. “Right. Of course. Guess you must be one hell of a hacker.”
I gave her a slow smirk. “Yeah. You could say that.”
But I wanted to know more than what I’d already read. The police reports, identification documents, and school records contained facts. Cold and verifiable. But they didn’t explain her .
“I can find out everything about a person that’s on paper or stored in digital files,” I said, resting my ankle on my thigh. “But that doesn’t explain who they really are. It’s just a dossier of facts.”
She tilted her head a little, watching me and waiting for me to continue.
“In order for someone to get to know you, you have to go through a process of revelation. You have to share your unique spin on what matters to you and what doesn’t, as well as how the facts of your life have shaped you.
Not what happened, but how you internalized it.
That’s what I don’t know about you yet.”
She blinked slowly but said nothing.
I leaned forward. “I need to hear your story from you , Lacey. I want to know what made you into the woman sitting in front of me right now.”
She reached over and picked up her wineglass, curling her fingers tightly around its bowl.
Another few seconds passed.
Then I asked gently, “Why did you take your sister’s name?”
She stiffened again, shooting me a sideways glance.
“Don’t you mean my dead sister’s name?”
A flicker of guilt tightened my chest. I’d been too blunt.
I didn’t apologize, but I frowned and nodded, maintaining eye contact. “Yes.”
Instead of responding, she knocked back the last of her wine and set the glass on the coffee table with a soft clink.
The fire threw soft golden flickers of light across her face, making her intense, stormy eyes dance.
Then, after taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she started talking.
“I had an idyllic childhood growing up in the sticks, as you called it.” She gave me a small, wry smile.
“I lived in a small town located just at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Everyone knew everyone. It was a place where kids could run free without a bunch of crime lords. Nothing like this place.”
She hugged the throw pillow to her chest as her eyes grew distant.
“Kids ran wild. Parents left their doors unlocked. Summers were muddy and full of fireflies. Winters were all about hot chocolate and football games and community dinners where someone always brought deviled eggs. It wasn’t perfect, but it was…good.”
I listened with interest. I’d read the files and had seen the photos, but nothing had told me what it felt like to grow up there. From what she was saying, it couldn’t have been more different from my upbringing.
“My sister was perfect—the actual Lyla. She was everything a Southern mama could want. Beautiful, polite, a straight-A student, adored by everyone. And, well, I was the opposite.”
She smiled and laughed at the memories. “Doctors would’ve called it ADHD. I was the queen of what if and why not . My mama had a full-time job keeping me out of trouble. And Daddy said I was born with rocket fuel in my veins, and that I was a perpetual motion machine.”
I chuckled, unable to help the smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Sounds about right.”
She tilted her head. “You think I’m hyper?”
“Think?” I leaned back. “You are the human embodiment of chaos, sunshine. Controlled chaos sometimes. But chaos nonetheless.”
That pulled a small laugh from her throat.
“I just…always needed to move,” she said. “To try things. I did gymnastics, dance, horseback riding, you name it. If it kept me busy and out of the principal’s office, my parents were game.”
She paused again, smiling and closing her eyes.
“There was this dinner show in Pigeon Forge—horses, acrobats, trick riding, aerial performers who used silks and rings… I must’ve begged my parents to take me a dozen times.
I became obsessed. I would tie sheets together and hang them from a high branch up in the oak tree in our backyard and practice the moves I’d seen on social media.
Eventually, my parents found an aerialist coach, and by the time I was fourteen, I had earned a spot in the show.
It was my first taste of live performance, and I—”
Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, blinked fast, and kept going.
“I fell in love with it—performing, that is. I wanted more. So I joined every local theater I could. And the summer before my senior year, I got into the Musical Theater Acting Intensive program at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. It’s hard to get into. But I did.”
She lifted her chin, meeting my eyes with quiet defiance.
“So no, I’m not just a dumb hillbilly stripper with a dream to make it on Broadway.”
My chest pulled tight.
Fuck.
I regretted all the shit I’d said to her. I’d treated her as though she were disposable entertainment, a girl who traded her dignity for dollars.
I cleared my throat. “I was an asshole.”
She blinked, seeming startled by the admission.
“I said a lot of stupid shit to try to push you away,” I said. “But what you did on that stage at the club?” I shook my head. “It wasn’t stripping. It was fucking mesmerizing.”
Her lips parted. She’d been stunned into silence.
“Don’t mistake my bullshit for indifference. You had every man in that room on a leash, and you didn’t even realize it.”
Color rose in her cheeks. “Then why did you make me feel like I was dirty for doing it?”
I swallowed hard. “Because you fucking made love to that pole while every man in the place got off on it. How could I have known you weren’t giving private lap dances and turning tricks for cash?”
She stared at me, biting her goddamn lip again.
After a long moment, I asked quietly, “You really didn’t know who Delgado was? What his intentions were in a fucking club named The Sacrifice?!”
Her face crumpled. “No,” she whispered. “I didn’t.
I thought it was just a job. It seemed like a weird, over-the-top club with strict rules and high pay.
But I didn’t see what was happening underneath.
I showed up, did my thing, and left. I didn’t…
I didn’t know that it had anything to do with selling girls. ”
My stomach turned, and I clenched my fists.
“I was so stupid,” she huffed.
“No,” I growled. “You were never stupid.”
She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see any of it.”
“Well, at least I got you out.”
She exhaled hard. “Yeah. You did.”
A fat tear rolled down her cheek.
“I guess I owe you big time for that.”
I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “Yeah…we both got shit wrong.”
Lacey’s sweatshirt had slipped farther off one shoulder, revealing the soft slope of skin I’d memorized hours ago with my mouth. But this wasn’t a moment to dwell on how much I wanted her. The heat between us had dissipated, replaced by something heavier.
I leaned back onto the cushion, settling into the sofa like I hadn’t done since moving in a couple of months ago. The designer had told me this space would be good for relaxing and connecting with people. I’d laughed at the thought of that.
Most people only talked to me when they needed something—money, connections, or a favor no one else could stomach. Their words were calculated, their motives thinly veiled. I was a resource, a threat, a means to an end.
But Lacey was different.
She wasn’t asking for anything. She was offering something instead—her story, her truth, raw and unvarnished. And it wasn’t lost on me how rare that was, how much trust it took. She didn’t know the half of what I was capable of, and still…she was letting me in.
I’d never been one to chat. Didn’t see the point in small talk or emotional exposition. But with her?
I found myself hanging on every damn word.
“You haven’t told me yet,” I said quietly. “Why did you take her name?”
Lacey tensed. The movement was subtle—shoulders tightening, lips rolling in—but I caught it.
“You already know why,” she muttered.
“No, not really.”
She reached up and pulled the elastic tie from her bun, letting her hair fall down. She shook it out and began nervously stretching the band. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this.”
“Yes, you do,” I said firmly. “You understand it’s time to be real with each other.” This conversation was the first time we’d been able to connect honestly with each other. Anything that happened between us from here on out hinged on building trust.
She didn’t deny it.
Instead, she stared at her fingers and twisted the hair band, debating whether to share more with me. “It’s hard to explain it, really.”
“Then maybe start by telling me about what happened when you lost her and your parents,” I gently prodded.
“It’s not something I ever talk about, but I’ll try,” she said, taking a deep, cleansing breath. “It was my senior year of high school. My sister had come home from college for the weekend, and my parents were on their way to drop her back at ETSU late one night. It was raining.”
She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and then pressed her lips together again, fighting to keep the tears away.